How to claim your social spotlight

When it comes to branding and brand identity in the 21st century; many companies now have to pay attention to their digital footprint, specifically their social media footprint. In a society where everyone is connected via the internet and likes and followers define the success of your brand, having a strong social media presence is vital to the survival of a brand. We’ve already explained how an online presence helps build a good brand, now we’re going to explain how you can build it.

So, you want to build an online presence?

Before we start discussing the how, let’s talk about the what and the why. What can social media do for your brand? Why should you consider building a presence across social platforms?

So just quickly, what exactly is brand awareness and why should you care about it? To break it down to its core basics, brand awareness is simply put as to how easily someone can recognise and remember a brand. So essentially, the better your brand awareness is, the more likely people will remember and talk about it; allowing your business to flourish. So, it’s really a no brainer on why social media is so important when it comes to your business and we haven’t even discussed the perks yet.

According to a study by Sproutsocial 86% of social media users follow brands because they want to, with 73.4% following because they find the product or service interesting.

Additionally, 25% of users will have followed you in order to have a two-way conversation with your brand, so it’s crucial that your brand engages with its follower base and has a social customer care plan ready to go. The survey also revealed that a staggering 75.3% of users purchased a product they had seen in their social feed.

From the reasons provided so far alone, it’s pretty clear why you should consider building a brand presence online. But what exactly can social media do for you?

1. Cost effectiveness

Well, for one thing, social media will certainly help your business save a bit when it comes to financial spending. Social media platforms provide you with a free platform to advertise your goods and services. You have the option to promote posts or run ads, all at budgets set by you; so, you can do this far cheaper than traditional forms of advertising. But the best part is, you don’t have to do any of these to still get the most out of using your social platforms! Social media just provides you with additional flexible options if you decide you need them.

2. You can nurture relations with your consumers

Let’s be realistic, if you’re on social media then you’ll quickly find that the majority of your customers are too. According to a study by Hootsuite, there were about 3.196 billion users by the end of 2018, with 11 new users joining every second. This provides you with the chance to build a strong and loyal following for your brand. But in order to ensure you get the best results from your following, you need to invest time interacting and nurturing your relationship with them. Doing so builds brand loyalty, increases engagement and allows you authenticity; all of which will sky-rocket awareness of your brand. So, the key to takeaway here is the happier and heard your follower base feels, the better your business will thrive. 

How do you build your online presence?

 We’ve covered the what and the why now we can discuss the how. Here are some of the steps you can follow to grow your social media identity and shine brighter than your competitors.

1. Use images and videos

Social media is a highly visual platform, this means that the best way to start climbing that ladder to the top spot is to use easy to digest media like images and video. Using visual stimulation will also entice followers to engage more often over text-based posts. Be sure to use photos unique to your brand to keep your identity consistent.

2. Adapt your tone if you need to

Learn to adapt the tone of your brand depending on which platform you’re using; this is because different users are drawn to different platforms. Whilst being funny and playful may be acceptable on Instagram, platforms like LinkedIn may require you to tone it down a little.

3. Post consistently

This should be a given, but it should be noted that consistent posting will help boost your presence. It’s hard for anyone to gain awareness for your brand without consistency, in fact, it’s expected you post multiple times a day at peak engagement if you’re a brand. Investing in a post scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite will help you manage your posts and allow you to easily keep your posting consistent. However, make sure you study your performance insights and adjust your posting accordingly.

4. Engage with influencers

These can either be popular individuals or popular pages that also appeal to your targeted audience. Approach them with offers to help market your brand but be prepared to negotiate on prices if you need to. Be sure to avoid any that are currently in open collaboration with competitors though.

5. Experiment and find what works for you

Do your followers like it more when you post sneak peeks? Or perhaps they enjoy it when you make user-centred posts? Do they prefer you having short and witty captions or ones that are a little lengthier and well informed? Try new things and gauge your followers’ responses so you can create the best content stream for your brand. Take note on how certain post types perform on certain days or even certain types and optimise your content accordingly.

6. The hashtag game

Hashtags are incredibly important when it comes to growing on social media. They help promote your post to the right people you want to be marketing to. So, use them openly and freely! Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per post, it’s in your best interests to use every single slot provided! Use the larger hashtags to help your posts gain interactions, you can even create a content to use as a brand hashtag to make it unique.

7. Follow trends

Staying up to date with the current trends and catering your social content to those trends will help your brand gain those follows and rack up that engagement. Keep an eye on the top trending topics across your social networks and find a way to fit your content into areas that currently have high interest. Just be sure you can do so tastefully, or you may annoy your followers.

8. Study study study

Most platforms will provide you with an insights tab so you can see how well your posts are performing. You can also compare yourself to your competitors to get the full picture of your social performance. This will quickly teach you what’s working for you and what isn’t and what type of content your consumers are looking to see from you.

Social media can be a tricky thing to navigate but once you’ve learnt the ropes on how to keep your followers happy and making killer content, it’ll quickly become a rewarding way to grow your business. You will soon find that the time and energy you invest in your social platforms will give you a large return in engagement and follower loyalty.

If you’re feeling a little lost on how to get started on making that perfect social content, we can help you out! With skills in Marketing and Social Assets, we can help give you a baseline on how to structure your post content so you can effectively market across all your platforms. So, if that sounds like the perfect match, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Ready to claim your social spotlight?

Book a FREE Strategy Consultation to discuss your business, challenges and goals and let us help you kick off your journey to success.